Second-person plural forms in World Englishes A Corpus-based Study
Outline
Definition and classification of second-person plural forms
Theoretical background
Research questions
Methodology and the corpus - GloWbe
Results
Conclusion Second-person plural forms
"Frankly, if you ask me, yous are all mad." (IE G daft.ie) Second-person plural forms (2PP)
Definition:
Second person pronominal form (you) to which some linguistic material is added in order to be interpreted as a plural in the context.
Examples: yous, yez, yinz, you guys, y'all, y'uns, etc.
Linguistic material: morpheme or NP => classification Classification of second-person plural forms
1. Morphological 2. Analytic
Regular plural suffixation: You + NP (pl.) NP + -s (or –z)
You guys Yous You all (y'all, yall)
Youse You ones (y'uns, yinz) Yiz You lot Yez You girls
Yus You fellas (…) (…) Classification of second-person plural forms
3. Double and triple marking
Combination of categories 1 and 2
Youse guys
Yous all
Youse lot
All youse fellas Theoretical background
2PPs and the literature
Suffixed forms => Irish origin (Gaelic 18th century), especially reduced-vowel variants (yiz/yez) (Wright 1961; Cassidy 1954, Gramley and Pätzold 1992, Algeo 2001, Corrigan 2010)
Analytic forms? (work in progress)
2PPs in dictionaries and grammars
Hardly mentioned because "non-standard"
Very short entries or footnotes (see next slide)
No mention in learner's dictionaries (but Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary 2005) 2PPs in dictionaries and grammars
Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al. 1999: 330) “The dialectal form yous is a second-person plural pronoun, filling the gap left by the absence of number contrast for you in modern standard English: I am sick to death of yous – all yous do is fight and ruck and fight - do you ever see a house like it Albert? (conv)”
Oxford Dictionary on-line
Collins English Dictionary on-line Functionality of Codification of Plurality
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?t erm=Youse Research questions
Do we know enough about 2PPs in English?
Frequencies and distribution
Functions: is it all about number marking?
Collocates and patterns: semantic preference? Semantic prosody?
Pragmatics
Is there a grammaticalisation/pragmaticalisation process going on?
Are there any world-wide trends in the use of 2PPs? The corpus: GloWbe
1.9 billion words
Mark Davies (Brigham University), 2013
Snapshot corpus
20 varieties of English
Inner Circle (Kachru 1985) - 6 varieties: AU, IE, GB, US, NZ, CA
Outer Circle (Kachru 1985) - 14 varieties: IN, LK, PK, BD, SG, MY, PH, HK, ZA, NG, GH, KE, TZ, JM
Websites + blogs Methodology
Qualitative analysis of instances of 2PPs (Frequencies, functions, syntax and semantics) in a single variety
Comparison between varieties
Comparison between Inner and Outer Circle
Control sample (you)
Collocates and patterns => AntConc
Statistics
T-score (Variety vs Average; IC vs OC)
Chi-square (2PP vs you) Results (suffixed 2PPs)
Frequencies
Most frequent variants: yous and youse (yous(e)) (0.3 pmw) All 20 varieties show instances of yous(e) More frequent in IC rather than OC (0.34 vs 0.09 pmw) IC: more frequent in IE and NZ (0.8* pmw, 0.5 pmw) Results (suffixed 2PPs)
Functions
Plural - more than two I adore yous (GB G) Singular - emphatic/empathetic (see pragmatics)
- Are yous the new librarian? - Who? - Yous. (IE G) Possessive - determiner/pronoun You made my day by helping realize how much greater my world view is than yous (US G) It ain't worth yous health (MY G) Results (suffixed 2PPs)
Distribution of functions
IC => PL < SG < Poss(A/P)
OC => PL < Poss(A/P) < SG [institutional function playing a role?] Results (suffixed 2PPs)
Collocates Prepositions: of* (cf patterns), to*, for* => Benefactive (cf. Pragmatics) Verbs: keep*, hope*, love, wish, enjoy, will Keep yous posted Hope yous enjoy catching up with Brian (AU) Love youse all! Conjunctions: if* Negation*
Structures Partitive: some of yous, those of yous, any of yous, the two of youse Hypothetical/conditional (+ negation): if yous don't do it now, you'll never do it again Results (suffixed 2PPs)
Semantic traits associated with 2PPs
Benefactive
Involvement
Commitment
Future
Condition (negative)
=> Pragmatics of 2PPs Results (suffixed 2PPs)
Pragmatics
Identification
Attention-getting devices: Oh youse. Stop giving her a hard time. (US) No more games yous. (US)
Social categorisation (yous(e) + NPpl.) => associativeness/negative connotation Youse Anglo-bastards (AU)
Expression of positive and negative politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987) Results (suffixed 2PPs)
Pragmatics
Expression of positive politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987) => Face enhancement
Compliments: Yous fuckin' rock (US)
Congratulations: Well done to yous and more success (IE)
Gratitude: Thank youse (IE)
Blessings: May God give yous strength (GB)
good wishes: Good luck to yous (GB)
Forgiveness: I forgive yous (MY)
Participation/sharing: I'm with youse guys on this (SG) Results (suffixed 2PPs)
Pragmatics
Expression of negative politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987) Avoiding face-threatening acts – Rituals of departure (Leech 2014) Main semantic trait: promising (involvement + future) Linguistic expression: routinised expressions and formulae
See youse there (AU)
Let youse know (IE)
See youse (US)
Will keep yous posted (GB) Results (suffixed 2PPs)
Differences between yous(e) and standard you
Yous(e) more likely to be plural than you + pragmatically charged
You more likely to be singular and impersonal (generally not pragmatically charged) Conclusion
So, when do we use suffixed 2PPs?
Express plurality
Emphatic identification of referents (or class of referents)
Positive politeness
Negative politeness
Spoken interaction => Social comity
Can we talk about pragmaticalisation? Yes Grammatical marker (PL) > Pragmatic marker (Emphasis + Politeness) Eastfallslocal.com Thank you! Questions? Bibliography
Brown, P. and Levinson, S. 1987. Politeness: Some Language Universals in Language Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cheshire, J. 1996. “Syntactic variation and the concept of prominence”, in Klemola, J., Kytö, M., & Rissanen, M. Speech past and present: Studies in English dialectology in memory of Ossi Ihalainen. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang. pp. 1-17. Conklin, K. and Schmitt, N. 2012. “The Processing of Formulaic Language” in Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 32. pp. 45 – 61. Corbett, G. G. 2000. Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Givón, T. 2001. Syntax: An Introduction, vol. I. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Leech, G. 2014. The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.